THIRTY-SEVEN #2
“Some of them,” he sneers. “Want to hear the gory details?”
Not even a little bit.
“Why leave the vestiges?” I demand, trying to buy myself a little more time to recover.
“That wasn’t me.” He almost sounds disappointed. “I would never leave magic behind. Not when a cycle might finally begin. We’re all collecting power, hoping it will. Many of us have stopped hiding these days.”
So much for that theory.
“I’d love to chat,” I bite out, “but I have scheduling conflicts.”
I need to reach my family. Laurel didn’t take the antidote. Stars know what she’s telling them right now, if she even went back. What’s the point if they’re all going to die …
No. I’m not letting that happen.
I roll under his guard and go for his hip. My sword connects, slicing deep.
But he’s still a scion, and I’m still me. He recovers in half a breath. Closes the distance and reaches for me.
This time, he gets a fistful of my collar.
Cold paralyzes my neck before I can scream.
It floods down to my chest, and my knees buckle. I hit moss, sword scattering into the leaves. My back hits the ground. The air rushes from my lungs.
He hovers over me, silhouetted by the high moon. “This is the part where most people start crying.”
“Fuck you,” I say instead.
I won’t cry in front of a man like him.
He lifts his sword—
Something crashes through the brush toward us.
He turns just as a blur of silver fur hits him in the chest like a battering ram. He goes down in a heap, two giant paws pinning him to the forest floor.
The wolf snarls, baring her fangs. Her ears are pressed back. The curved horns sweeping from her skull glint in the moonlight, and her blue eyes seem to glow like the man’s vestiges.
Above her, a black shape circles the starry sky.
Stefan wriggles, working a hand free.
“Watch out!” I yell to the beast as he slaps his palm against the wolf’s flank. His fingers pale as he pours that cold through her. The wolf shudders, wavers for a beat that sends me scrambling to my knees, searching for my sword. But she doesn’t let go.
Stefan hits her again. She whines, rearing back slightly. He kicks her off and rolls clear, then rises, panting.
He stalks toward his own fallen sword. I’m still fishing for mine. My fingers close on the hilt as the wolf lunges again. She’s slower now, listing to one side, but she throws her body between us.
Something small and silver streaks toward her.
It’s a pup, all paws and ears and horn nubs barely bigger than my thumb. He barrels out from the trees after his mother, yipping. Following her into the fight like it’s his calling, too.
My heart crashes in my chest as the pup bounds in front of me.
Protecting me.
And the mother turns.
Puts herself between us and our attacker.
A second. Only a second.
Stefan’s sword slices through her side.
A haunting yowl roars out of her. Her giant body arches and crumples to the ground in a heap.
My scream fills the clearing.
And inside me, something loosens.
The pup scrambles toward her immediately, whimpering as he noses her side. He doesn’t understand. He prods again for her to get up.
A sob lodges in my throat and refuses to move.
I’ve spent months ignoring the cracks splintering me.
Every loss. Every betrayal. Every terrible truth I’ve tried to dismiss.
Every time, I’ve shoved the pieces back into place and refortified my defenses, because the alternative meant admitting what the Stars marked me to become.
But watching the pup nudge his mother’s broken body, I suddenly see the wall I’ve built for what it is.
Not protection.
A prison.
One I’ve built stone by stone, afraid of the mark on my chest. Afraid that everyone was right about what I am. Including myself.
That I bring death.
But death was already here. It was there when my father died. There when Kieren took his last breath. And death was there every time someone decided another life was worth less than theirs. I didn’t bring any of it. I just keep finding it.
The fear I built my defenses on crumbles, and the wall starts to come down.
The pup lets out a tiny, angry growl … and then bounds to where I’m lying on the ground. He continues to snarl at Stefan. Like he already senses it’s his duty to protect me now.
The final stone gives way, my chest cracking open like the floor on the night of my Kindling. Darkness rises inside me in answer. Not foreign. Not frightening. Familiar. And for the first time, I don’t fight it.
The cold Stefan poured into me evaporates as the truth ignites me.
The mark on my skin burns like steel in a forge, fire surging through my blood and flooding the space below it. Shaping me from the inside out. Something shifts deep inside me, as if a door I’ve spent my entire life holding shut has finally swung open.
The forest falls silent.
I plant my palm on the ground and push myself to my knees.
Across the clearing, Stefan takes a step backward.
Then another.
I don’t know what he sees when he looks at me.
“What in the seven hells—” he whispers, continuing to back away.
I drag in a breath. “Didn’t you hear?” I rasp, my voice growing stronger with each word. “I’m the fucking harbinger.”
And I decide my fate.
The mother wolf came to help me, but she won’t survive that wound. Won’t live to see her pup grow. She won’t be there to protect him.
So, I rise.
I rise because she can’t.
I rise because Kieren didn’t.
I rise because no power, not even the Stars, will keep me on my knees when I know what needs to be done.
Magic scorches a trail across my neck, my chest, my arms. It doesn’t matter.
Nothing matters except the distance between my sword and his chest. I close it in two strides—arms shaking, lungs burning, throat raw.
Stefan pulls his weapon free from the wolf with a sickening squelch and whirls toward me.
But I’m faster. And pissed.
I’m still screaming as I plunge my blade through his ribs. Through bone and muscle and tissue. I throw my weight into it with everything I have. With my whole body. For the mother wolf. For her baby. For every innocent life this world has snuffed out in the name of power.
His face goes slack, a waxy gray hollowing his cheeks as his head drops in surprise to the sword I’ve rammed through his heart.
I let him fall.
Leave the sword rising out of his chest like a gravestone.
My strength leaves me all at once, and I crash to my knees.
The pup scampers back to his mother and curls beside her, crying softly.
There’s not enough left of me to stand. I crawl across the leaves to where she’s gone down on her side. Her eye finds me, the blue glow dimming as her flank rises in shallow pants.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, tears flowing unchecked down my cheeks. I press my hand to the soft place behind her ear, the way I used to do with our barn cats when they were dying. “I’m so sorry.”
Her breath rattles once, and then it stops.
The pup pushes his small head against her muzzle and … howls.
My heart howls with him.
I’m still sitting in the leaves with my hand on the dead wolf when I hear the outpost’s warning bell.
Then shouts. Bishop’s. My brother’s.
There’s no relief. Only a hollow pang like the bell echoing through the night.